UCSJ » Euromaidanhttp://www.ucsj.org
The voice of human rights throughout EurasiaFri, 20 Feb 2015 18:20:52 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1For Kyiv archbishop, a rotating fast for peace in Ukraine will be held after the Synodhttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/06/27/for-kyiv-archbishop-a-rotating-fast-for-peace-in-ukraine-will-be-held-after-the-synod/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-kyiv-archbishop-a-rotating-fast-for-peace-in-ukraine-will-be-held-after-the-synod
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/06/27/for-kyiv-archbishop-a-rotating-fast-for-peace-in-ukraine-will-be-held-after-the-synod/#commentsFri, 27 Jun 2014 19:35:39 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2587Moscow (AsiaNews) – The 87th Plenary Assembly of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches (ROACO) opened today until Thursday when an audience with Pope Francis will bring the meeting to a close. As expected, the event will focus on the crises in Syria and Iraq, but it will also look at the situation of […]

]]>Moscow (AsiaNews) – The 87th Plenary Assembly of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches (ROACO) opened today until Thursday when an audience with Pope Francis will bring the meeting to a close. As expected, the event will focus on the crises in Syria and Iraq, but it will also look at the situation of Greek Catholic Churches in Romania and Ukraine. It will highlight the key priorities of evangelisation and supporting pastoral organisations and workers.

Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč, Mgr Sviatoslav Shevchuk, is among those attending the proceedings. AsiaNews spoke with him about the synod and the situation in Ukraine.Here is the transcript of the interview.

In its final document now being drafted, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church will announce a long period of rotating prayers and fasting in all 14 dioceses in the country “until the return of peace,” said Major Archbishop of Kyiv Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

In an interview with AsiaNews, he expressed concern for the fighting in the east, but also confidence that “God is listening to the prayers of the Ukrainian people.”

“Maidan is a great movement of social rebirth, an idea that is still alive. As a Church, we could not stay away,” he said in commenting the Church’s role in street protests, which was strongly criticised by the Russian Orthodox Church, closer in its position to that of the Kremlin.

Your Excellency, updating the ecumenical position of the Greek Catholic Church was at the centre of the last Synod. What was discussed?

Ecumenism is not only an important issue but also an urgent one in the light of recent attacks that our Church received from some brothers. We need to update our ecumenical vision, which was formulated 14 years ago by my predecessor, Card Lubomyr Husar. Precisely because of the centrality of the theme, we held a symposium before our Synod, where we invited some experts on ecumenism in which, among other things, we took stock of the current state of ecumenism, especially in light of recent contacts between the Apostolic See and the Orthodox world, with the Holy Father’s visit to Jerusalem and the prayer for peace with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

What conclusions were drawn?

We have set up a theological commission to update our ecumenical position and we hope to release soon a canonically approved document. The Synod, however, was also a time to share sorrows and concerns. We have thus made an appeal to pray and fast for peace in Ukraine that will be published in a few days.

What will the appeal’s main points?

We have three points.

The first is that we feel the Lord is listening. Despite the difficult times, the people of Ukraine was able to renew the system of government, preserving religious peace and ethnic diversity. We held elections, which gave us a president in the first round, something that never happened in free Ukraine. In all regions, a majority of voters cast their ballots for Petro Poroshenko, showing that Ukraine is not divided. As believers, we interpret this as a miracle.

The second point is that we are aware of the challenges that still lay ahead of us. We cannot not feel pain when we have to help tens of thousands of refugees. We hear almost every day that civilians are abducted and tortured, that heavy weapons are being brought in from across the border. We must be agents of peace and charity.

The third point is, therefore, to announce a period of fasting and prayer, in a specific order. On a rotating basis, one of our 14 dioceses will fast. Each day of the week will be devoted to various intentions of prayer, from the president to the dead, including our opponents.

You have been much criticised by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow for your support of protests in Kyiv’s Maidan Square. What does Maidan mean today?

In order to interpret truthfully the role of the Churches in those events, we must say that Maidan was not a political event, but started as a manifestation of civil society. People who were out on the streets did not stand under the banners of political parties; they called for a renewal of the system of government, of the way of doing politics. For this reason, the Churches felt part of civil society, but rejected backing any political parties. Maidan means a movement of renewal, which still exists. We have seen this with the outcome of the presidential election, which showed that radicals did not monopolise protests. It was a revolution for human dignity, where people expressed their willingness to take the lead in the country’s development.

How does this translate in practical terms today?

Today Maidan means a strong desire to control those in power, the rulers: from the president to the parliament. We are facing an extraordinary awakening of civil society. In this context, our position is to preach the social doctrine of the Church, nothing more. We could not stay away from these events. We were preachers of the Gospel, and the Church says that its social doctrine is a means of evangelisation. We were able to keep religious and ethnic peace, although we were not able to avoid violence.

What are your thoughts with regards to President Poroshenko?

Let us say that the very fact that Ukraine has a legitimately elected president is a very positive thing. He now faces very difficult challenges. We expect him to bring peace to the country. Certainly, he is not a god who can calm tensions in a day, but we all expect that he will find a way to bring the eastern part of the country back to normal.

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/06/27/for-kyiv-archbishop-a-rotating-fast-for-peace-in-ukraine-will-be-held-after-the-synod/feed/0May 18- 20 in Ukrainehttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/25/may-18-in-ukraine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=may-18-in-ukraine
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/25/may-18-in-ukraine/#commentsSun, 25 May 2014 19:58:48 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2515May 18 – 2191 international observers will be monitoring presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25th… May 18 – During the night of May 18th, a motor convoy led by the terrorists is preparing to transport a special load from Ukraine to Russia. “In particular, bodies of terrorists, killed during the fights with Ukrainian soldiers […]

]]>May 18 – 2191 international observers will be monitoring presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25th…

May 18 – During the night of May 18th, a motor convoy led by the terrorists is preparing to transport a special load from Ukraine to Russia. “In particular, bodies of terrorists, killed during the fights with Ukrainian soldiers will be transported. There are a few hundred bodies. According to our data, the motor convoy will cross the state border in Luhansk oblast”, said Dmytro Tymchuk, the leader of “Information resistance” group.

May 18 – Several insurgents were detained as a result of the anti-terrorist operation near Kramatorsk. Two of these people introduced themselves as Russian journalists, said Dmytro Tymchuk, the leader of “Information resistance” group.

May 18 – After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, over 7 thousand Crimean Tatars were forced to leave the peninsula due to “pressure from Russian invaders”.

May 18 – Militia officers and the officers of the Special Purpose Mobile Unitfrom Krasnodar were preventing the arrival of Crimean Tatars to Simferopol. Crimean Tatars planned to participate in the commemorative events marking the 70th anniversary of their deportation.

May 18 – During a commemorative event dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the deportation, Crimean Tatars spoke about the need to urgently restore their rights and stop any discrimination based on political, national and religious grounds. They also declared their request to return the historic names to those sites, which names were changed after the deportation of Crimean Tatars, to pass the laws guaranteeing Crimean Tatar representation within Crimean authorities as well as to recognize Kurultai ans Mejlis – representative authorities of Crimea’s autochton. Also Mejlis will press to annul the prohibition of entry to Crimea, which was issued to Mustafa Zhemilev, the deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine and the leader of Crimean Tatars.

May 18- After a commemorative event dedicated to the deportation of Crimean Tatars, communication has been lost with a journalist Osman Pashayev. On May 18th Osman Pashayev has streamed live from the commemorative events in Crimea. He was arrested by local illegal “authorities” of Crimea.

By annexing Crimea, Russia has carried out an act of aggression against Ukraine. Currently Russia is transferring terrorist and sabotage groups to Eastern Ukraine. Russia aims to prevent legitimate presidential elections from happening. Everyday life in Eastern Ukraine has turned into a continuous nightmare in the middle of Europe. Our country is being destroyed right before our eyes. We therefore take the courage to inform you about current events in Ukraine. This is just another point of view. We will do our best to remain objective.

May 19 – The mood of the residents of Donbas has changed dramatically. Today there are fewer and fewer of those who support the protesters… People are afraid to go out; they fear for the future of their businesses. This has changed the overall situation significantly. Previously, 3-5 thousand people were actively protesting, whereas right now there are far less of them, said the Head of Donetsk Regional State Administration Serhiy Taruta. According to Mr.Taruta “there were 10-15 thousand people protesting overall in all of Donetsk oblast. I am unable to say how many of them were armed with guns. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of them but thank God there are not tens of thousands of them. Therefore I would say that the situation is complicated, but not critical”, he said.

May 19 – Payments such as pensions and salaries allocated from the state budget will be suspended in cities of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk (Donetsk oblast) due to rampant behavior on behalf of pro-Russian terrorists, informed the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.

May 19 – As a result of a threat from machinegunners of a so called “People’s Republic of Donetsk”, a peace rally was cancelled in Mariupol. “A Peace March with no political slogans or flags was supposed to be held in Mariupol at 5 pm today. Thousands of people planned to participate, including approximately 30000 of our employees”, wrote Natalia Yemchenko, Director of Public Relations and Communications at System Capital Management (SCM), which is owned by an oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

May 19 – In Kyiv, the officers of the Security Service of Ukraine apprehended eight members of a criminal group. It is suspected that they were preparing the acts of terrorism aiming to disrupt presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25th.

May 19 – Security Service of Ukraine prevented a terrorist attack in Odesa on May 18th – pro-Russian terrorists had planned to blow up a motor vehicle at Kulikovo Field (“Kulikovo Pole”) in Odesa at 2 pm on May 18th. At that point in time over fifteen hundred people would have been present at the scene. These people were pro-Russia oriented.

May 20 – Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev made it clear that Russia is unlikely to recognize the results of presidential elections in Ukraine. Russia cannot and doesn’t intent to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine, as it never assumed such obligations, he said. “We are slowly but steadily moving towards the second Cold War”, concluded he in his interview with Bloomberg News Agency. Obviously this message was some sort of a threat to the US. And equally obvious is the fact that these are Putin’s words stated by Medvedev.

May 20 – In Artemivsk (Donetsk oblast) the terrorists have threatened to burn down one of the schools and hang its director if the building operates as a polling station for the presidential elections in Ukraine.

May 20 – As of Tuesday, 12 pm 11 premises of District Election Commissions out of 34 are blocked in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by pro-Russian terrorists, informed Konstantin Khivrenko, Central Election Commission’s Press Secretary.

May 20 – One of the leaders of the terrorist organization “People’s Republic of Donetsk” Denys Pushylin has announced the beginning of nationalization in the region. This is terrorists’ interpretation of the pro-Ukrainian speech of the wealthiest businessman of Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov, who condemned “People’s Republic of Donetsk” as a terrorist organization.

May 20 – A protest rally initiated by the by civil society organisations has taken place in the city of Donetsk and in Donetsk oblast at 12 pm. The rally was against the destabilization of situation in Donbas, against the violence and chaos, banditry and looting by the activists of the so-called “People’s Republic of Donetsk”. The employees of local enterprises attended the strike, whereas car drivers supported the event by pressing car klaxons.

May 20 – Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine states that Russia has not withdrawn its troops from the Ukrainian borders, despite the statements of President Vladimir Putin.

May 20 – Security Service of Ukraine states that it has evidence proving the use of technologies aiming to psychologically impact the viewers by Russian media (so-called “25th frame” in particular). At SSU’s briefing, a video of “Russia-24″ news program about Odesa events (May 2nd) was demonstrated. Throughout the whole program, slightly visible words such as “arson right sector”, “people killed by banderovtsy”, “national guards are killers” were appearing in the corner of the screen.

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/25/may-18-in-ukraine/feed/0Odessa is not the Crimea: this war is about Europehttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/06/odessa-is-not-the-crimea-this-war-is-about-europe/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=odessa-is-not-the-crimea-this-war-is-about-europe
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/06/odessa-is-not-the-crimea-this-war-is-about-europe/#commentsTue, 06 May 2014 14:28:52 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2481Moscow (AsiaNews) – Battles continue to rage in Eastern Ukraine. Yesterday, four people died and 30 were injured in a gunfight between pro-Russian and Ukrainian military forces on the outskirts of Slovyansk. An army helicopter was shot down , but the pilots survived. Two days ago, government forces killed 20 rebels and dozens more were injured […]

]]>Moscow (AsiaNews) – Battles continue to rage in Eastern Ukraine. Yesterday, four people died and 30 were injured in a gunfight between pro-Russian and Ukrainian military forces on the outskirts of Slovyansk. An army helicopter was shot down , but the pilots survived.

Two days ago, government forces killed 20 rebels and dozens more were injured in the city of Slovyansk. On May 2 , in Odessa , 42 people were killed and 125 were wounded after pro-Russian sympathizers took refuge in a building which later caught fire. More than 30 government buildings (administration, police , security services , etc …) are in the hands of the pro-Russian rebels in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

While Kiev blames “terrorists” for wanting to topple the legitimate government, Moscow denounces the “ultra-nationalist, extremist and neo-Nazi forces” who are guilty of “massive” violations of human rights, creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” that threatens the stability and peace in Europe. Meanwhile, the international community appears increasingly inept in its attempts to diffuse these outbreaks of war, perhaps because it is unable to understand what is at stake : the search for a way of life for a people who fell that neither Russia nor Europe really understand them.

The increasingly frequent outbreak of worrying clashes in the eastern regions of Ukraine pose different and new questions regarding the recent crisis, although they were clearly kindled by the Crimea’s secession and its annexation by the Russian Federation.

The protests that were born on Maidan in Kiev concerned the development model of the country in the coming decades , influenced by the political choices of its relationship with Russia and the European Community. The protests have erupted into a revolt, following the excessive reaction of President Yanukovych . The violent repression of the Maidan protesters has created , or rather brought to light, a consciousness of political, ideological and spiritual aggregation, which heretofore had never been expressed in these terms, even at the time of the “Orange Revolution”. Going well beyond economic or strategic future prospective, Ukraine has “discovered” its national identity, not only as a “former Soviet country”, but the result of twenty years of complex and contradictory experiences, which at the same time, are its “own” and unique.

The new reality that has been created has not yet had time to establish itself, and the “interim” faces of President Turchinov and Prime Minister Yatsenjuk are incapable of representing the real dimensions of the life of the Ukrainian people. The elections later this month may deliver some clarity, when he forces linked to the nostalgia of the past, to Russia or to periods of a Ukraine separated from it, but also to the post-Soviet oligarchs, and new forces, most representative of Ukrainians today, will run against each other.

There is no doubt that the ongoing riots follow an escalation ahead of the election, to influence its outcome. These clashes alternate the somewhat illusory “pro-Russian” as opposed to “pro-Ukranian” flag, even if the stakes are certainly more complex and less obvious. The Crimean split should fool no one: there is a profound difference between the peninsula between the Black Sea and the regions of Donetsk, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. The Crimea has never been a truly “mixed” land; it is a substantially Russian nation, which was originally settled with the most significant part of the Golden Horde Tatar invaders , now reduced to a residual and dissident minority. Russians, Cossacks, Turks and Greek , Ukrainians and Poles inhabit Eastern Ukraine, in different and inconsistent proportions, not to mention the city of Odessa, where the most tragic and regrettable episode of the past conflicts took place; the great port of Odessa is the “final destination” of the large European Jewish diaspora and Yiddish culture , which in turn gave rise to the new exodus to modern day Israel.

The violence of Slovjansk , Donetsk and Odessa cannot be reduced to the provocation of spontaneous militias, which certainly affect many spetsnaz from Russia, or as excesses of interventionism of the provisional government of Kiev, to impose a new still rather shaky order. They are clashes of identity in search of self-affirmation, of souls in search of a body, whether it be the state of Russia or Ukraine, the legendary Rus ‘ of the past or a new federation of more or less autonomous regions. It is pointless to feed one or other ruler to the lions, not even after Putin’s menacing expressions or Obama’s policy of sanctions, an increasingly predictable move by an international community incapable of understanding Ukrainian events. The European community is even more confused, terrified of being left with the bill for a crisis that it is struggling to identify with, despite involving a nation on the same continent.

Pope Francis’ appeal, who invokes the spirit of brotherhood and peace, must be met with content from those who live side by side, as individuals and as peoples, as cultures, religions and churches . East and West Ukraine, regards everyone, Europeans and Christians, Turks and Jews: In the name of what do we feel ourselves brothers and sisters today on this earth?

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/05/06/odessa-is-not-the-crimea-this-war-is-about-europe/feed/0Khodorkovsky’s Speech to the Ukraine-Russia Dialogue Forumhttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/25/khodorkovskys-speech-to-the-ukraine-russia-dialogue-forum/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=khodorkovskys-speech-to-the-ukraine-russia-dialogue-forum
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/25/khodorkovskys-speech-to-the-ukraine-russia-dialogue-forum/#commentsFri, 25 Apr 2014 16:46:25 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2466The following speech text was prepared by Mikhail Khodorkovsky for delivery at the Ukraine-Russia Dialogue Forum. Dear friends, colleagues, Over the last month the most frequent question I’ve been asked was: Why hold this conference? How will it help Ukraine that seems to be facing its toughest challenge since becoming an independent nation? What will […]

]]>The following speech text was prepared by Mikhail Khodorkovsky for delivery at the Ukraine-Russia Dialogue Forum.

Dear friends, colleagues,

Over the last month the most frequent question I’ve been asked was: Why hold this conference? How will it help Ukraine that seems to be facing its toughest challenge since becoming an independent nation? What will our fellow Russian citizens think?

My response is the same that consistently helped me throughout what was a very long decade for me: Do what you have to do, and come what may.

We have gathered here for different reasons but, above all, because we are in disagreement with President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine policy.

We are also here to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people, a people that the Kremlin regime is trying to prevent from building its own life.

Ukraine is going through some really hard times. However I do not believe that a nation that has lived through two revolutions over the last decade; has stood, without flinching, at the Maidan square under gunfire is willing to accept the loss of its statehood. Hence, we have reasons for being optimistic, not just for being worried.

We are here because we are enraged by the Russian State-sponsored propaganda’s lies to its own citizens and we want to tell the public what we can see and hear for ourselves.

We are here to look one another in the eye and to say one more time: no dictator, no matter how powerful, will turn us, independently-thinking individuals, into enemies.

We are able and willing to jointly tackle the most complex challenges that life is putting in front of our nations.

Dear colleagues! At the panel discussions, we will be able to discuss a plan for Ukraine that is similar to the Marshall plan; to discuss setting up a full-fledged European-style university based on a leading Ukrainian higher education establishment; talk about a cultural dialog and about honestly informing society, and, of course, about a real effort at curtailing corruption.

Let me now say a few words in my personal capacity, as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, not as a co-sponsor of this forum.

The saddest thing for us, citizens of Russia, is that President Putin is not attacking global and strategic challenges. Once again, this time in Ukraine, he is using his office to avenge a personal grudge. He is offended because of the revolution, because the thieving former President Yanukovich and his corrupt entourage have been forced into exile. The parallels hit too close to home for him.
As a result of those ambitions, Moscow would not be able, for a long period of time, if not forever, to become the center of gravity for the Slavic universe; the idea of unifying the Orthodox Church around Moscow has been in fact put to rest and buried, and millions of our fellow countrymen abroad are facing hostility.

It’s as if, instead of building the North Atlantic Alliance, the US were to invade, say, Canada, tell it how to structure its domestic relations and pinch a couple of vegetable gardens.

By the way, one result is that, a thousand years later, the Slavic center can once again return to Kyiv. I would be happy for Kyiv but, frankly speaking, as a Russian and a citizen of Russia, I root for Moscow.

Now that we are in the 21st century, one can live by the rules of centuries past; one can, as before, continue to think in terms of territorial expansion by force, rather than along the lines of improving the quality of people’s lives.
However, in the modern, increasingly global world, it does not only appear weird and uncivilized, it is, simply, the kind of behavior that will make one a loser. Building Europe’s biggest mosque in the moderately-sized Chechnya or a sea bridge to connect the mainland to a peninsula and doing it instead of building highways, schools, housing, things that are badly needed by Russians living outside the luxury zip codes in Moscow – such is the result of the incumbent regime’s “glorious victories”.

One final thought.

As a conference cosponsor, I know only too well just how difficult it was for many to come to Kyiv. Not merely on account of pressure from the authorities. It was hard because the majority of the society has temporarily gone mad.

Friends! My personal experience over the last decade has taught me to deal in long periods of time and to never forget that dark times are always followed by days of light, and that today’s most impossible dreams become tomorrow’s reality.

I take pride in my fellow countrymen who are capable of remaining sane, of thinking about my nation’s future and being willing, for the sake of that future, to go against the opinion of the “aggressively obedient majority”.

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/25/khodorkovskys-speech-to-the-ukraine-russia-dialogue-forum/feed/0Shaken, and stirring: Ukrainians pack bagshttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/04/shaken-and-stirring-ukrainians-pack-bags/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shaken-and-stirring-ukrainians-pack-bags
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/04/shaken-and-stirring-ukrainians-pack-bags/#commentsFri, 04 Apr 2014 17:45:55 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2448By day, the Maidan, Kiev’s revolutionary square, is a jumble of tents, flags and half-demolished barricades. The anti-government groups who led the resistance are selling hot tea to passers-by, their burning rubber tyres having given way to makeshift stoves. Stalls display martyr badges and scarves in Ukrainian colours: the revolution is already being commodified. By […]

]]>By day, the Maidan, Kiev’s revolutionary square, is a jumble of tents, flags and half-demolished barricades. The anti-government groups who led the resistance are selling hot tea to passers-by, their burning rubber tyres having given way to makeshift stoves. Stalls display martyr badges and scarves in Ukrainian colours: the revolution is already being commodified.

By night, however, armed paramilitaries — including some neo-fascist groups — still control sections of the square and locals warn against walking through the area.

The corrupt and self-serving former president Viktor Yanukovich may be gone, but in Kiev nobody is entirely in control. And while no-one — from the man on the street to presidential hopefuls — claims to know what Russian forces will do next, in the case that they do invade, they

have only one response: there will be war.

The 100,000-strong Jewish population of Kiev is preparing for the worst. One prominent member of the community, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “There weeks ago it was

worse, because nobody knew if Putin would stop at Crimea. We were panicking and arranged cars to take us to the border.

“Now there is a feeling that the emergency has passed, but there is huge uncertainty. Many Jews have left and others are packing up now.”

He stressed, however, that it was not the fear of racist attacks that was encouraging the exodus. “There were four attacks in one month in one small area of the city — it was within the same two city blocks. Before that, I had never heard of anything like it. It happened immediately after a spate of media reports saying that the revolutionaries had many antisemites in their ranks. I think that the news reports could have provoked the actions.”

The possibility of a Russian invasion is also pushing Jews in smaller cities — especially in the east — to leave, with many looking to make aliyah.

The Jewish community hub in Dnepropetrovsk, the Menorah Centre, houses a small Israeli consulate, which is receiving an average of 25 aliyah applications a day. “The phone rings every ten minutes,” said Viacheslav Smotkin, head of the consulate.

One of those queuing up was Yuri Rinkov, a programmer from Krivoyrog. He said: “We planned to move several years ago, but now we are ready to go, partly due to the political situation. Jewish life in my city is good. There are no problems for Jews.”

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/04/04/shaken-and-stirring-ukrainians-pack-bags/feed/0Ukraine’s Phantom Neo-Nazi Menacehttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/28/ukraines-phantom-neo-nazi-menace/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ukraines-phantom-neo-nazi-menace
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/28/ukraines-phantom-neo-nazi-menace/#commentsFri, 28 Mar 2014 18:52:09 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2421http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/ukraines-phantom-neo-nazi-menace/359650/ by David Frum KIEV, Ukraine—“When was the last time you personally experienced anti-Semitism?” I asked the executive director of the organized Jewish community for the city of Kiev. He gave me a puzzled look. “You mean, called me a Zhid or something like that?” “Anything.” He thought for a moment. “Back in Soviet times.” I put […]

KIEV, Ukraine—“When was the last time you personally experienced anti-Semitism?” I asked the executive director of the organized Jewish community for the city of Kiev. He gave me a puzzled look. “You mean, called me a Zhid or something like that?” “Anything.” He thought for a moment. “Back in Soviet times.”

I put the same question to a roomful of senior citizens in one of the country’s 32 Jewish social-service centers. The group, which was mostly women, laughed out loud. They faced plenty of problems: the standard old-age pension in Ukraine is only about $100 a month, pitifully little even in this poor country. But the Russian claim that gangs of neo-Nazis are roaming Ukraine, threatening its Jewish population, evoked unanimous scorn from every Jewish person I talked to in the country.

The thing Putin seeks to prevent—true democracy in Ukraine—is the thing most likely to slay the demons of the past.

On the way out of the center, I stopped to talk to one of the two security guards in the driveway. As in all European cities, Kiev’s Jewish organizations take precautions. But this guard was nothing like the well-armed gendarmes you see patrolling Jewish institutions in France or Belgium. A friendly faced, middle-aged man armed only with a walkie-talkie, he told me that in four years on duty he had encountered not a single threat. I asked if the situation had changed in any way since the flight of the Soviet-backed president, Viktor Yanukovych, on February 22. “During the protests [in January and February], we had extra guards,” he said. “But now we’re back to normal.”

***

The most audacious part of the Russian propaganda campaign against Ukraine is the way it suppresses and reverses the truth about the violence here: It was initiated and sustained by Russian-backed authorities. On November 21, under Russian pressure, the Ukrainian government rejected a trade treaty with the European Union, triggering massive protests across the country, and most visibly in Kiev’s central Independence Square, or Maidan. These protests were brutally broken up by plainclothes thugs as police stood by. Then the police joined in, with escalating brutality, including cold-blooded sniper fire against protesters and then against those who aided the wounded.

Central Kiev is now filled with poignant memorials of the struggle: candles, flowers, faded posters of people who went missing—and who are now known to have been killed by the authorities, their bodies tossed without ceremony into communal graves. The city still bears the marks of the violence, especially the torched and empty trade-union building overlooking Independence Square, which police invaded on the night of February 18. The square is still blocked off with barricades of tires, paving stones, and odd bits of trash: the metal balcony of an apartment, a soft-drink refrigerator with the glass front torn off. Men (young and not so young) in military uniforms seized from armories in western Ukraine sit encamped all over the square—unwilling to go home because the story doesn’t seem over but uncertain what to do now that the drama has shifted away from Kiev to the country’s frontiers, which are threatened by Russian invasion.

***

Like Kiev itself, Ukraine’s government institutions also have a battered and broken look—in particular, the now-reviled police. The widespread distrust of the police, who in any case aren’t much in evidence, forms the basis of whatever fear Ukraine’s Jews do feel. If trouble were to arise, who would they call?

The good news is, there isn’t much trouble. Since February 22, there have been six notable anti-Semitic incidents in Ukraine: four involving the defacement or desecration of synagogues and cemeteries, and two involving outright violence. These incidents have alarmed Jewish communities worldwide. In Ukraine, however, they are regarded with unanimous skepticism, if not outright disbelief.

People mourn in Kiev’s Independence Square at a memorial for those killed in Ukraine’s revolution. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)

All my conversations on these subjects were off-the-record. The incidents are ongoing police matters, and older Ukrainians have developed a hard-learned caution about being identified in the media. However, I spoke to more than a dozen people who occupied a variety of leadership roles within the Ukrainian Jewish community. And not a single person took seriously the idea that these anti-Jewish incidents had been carried out by “neo-Nazis.”

Take the most visually spectacular incident: the daubing of a swastika and anti-Semitic slogans on a synagogue in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. The incident occurred the night before the Russians invaded, creating convenient photographic confirmation of one of Moscow’s pretexts for invasion: the supposed neo-Nazi menace inside Ukraine. The synagogue’s security camera recorded that a lone individual, never subsequently identified, was responsible for the graffiti. There had been no previous such incident in the nearly two decades since the local Jewish community recovered the synagogue from communist-era confiscation.

The circumstances surrounding the two violent anti-Semitic incidents are even murkier. The victim of one is a well-known and respected figure in Kiev’s Jewish life, who wears his hair and dresses in a visibly Jewish way. He was attacked suddenly from behind at night and stabbed in the leg, never managing to identify who assaulted him. The second incident involved a couple bursting into a local synagogue one night and claiming that they had been surrounded by a gang and physically threatened, but had hailed a taxi and escaped just in time.

In early March, leaders of Ukraine’s Jewish community—which today, according to most estimates, numbers in the low hundreds of thousands—published an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which they declared their support for a “sovereign, democratic, and united Ukraine.” “Your certainty about the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine … does not correspond to the actual facts,” they wrote.

***

There’s no denying that the relationship between Ukrainians and Jews has historically been a difficult one. Jews came in large numbers to Ukrainian territory in the 1500s, when the country was carved into estates by the Polish crown. Aristocratic landlords recruited literate and numerate Jews to manage these new estates—to oversee the production of grain and ship it down the Vistula river to feed Western Europe. For the enserfed Ukrainian peasant, the Polish king and his nobles were remote figures. It was a Jewish middleman who typically supervised the peasant’s labor, collected rents, and enforced the estate’s monopoly on the distilling and sale of vodka. To the peasant, that middleman became the face of foreign exploitation. The hatred this engendered was reinforced by the teachings of an Orthodox church that vilified Jews as killers of Christ who still feasted on bread soaked in Christian blood. These attitudes persist, alas, to this day. One rabbi I met in Ukraine told me that an Orthodox priest had refused an invitation to an interfaith tea-and-cake meeting at his synagogue with the explanation, “I don’t eat blood.”

One of the worst massacres of European Jews between the Crusades and World War II took place in Ukraine.

One of the worst massacres of European Jews between the Crusades and World War II took place in Ukraine in the 1640s and 1650s. Half Ukraine’s Jews lost their lives, and the devastated community would not begin to recover until the 19th century. Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the warlord who unleashed that massacre, appears on horseback in a statue that dominates the square in front of Kiev’s cathedral. It was erected more than a century ago by tsarist authorities who appreciated his role as the leader who delivered Ukraine to Russia. It’s more than a little disconcerting, however, that his face still decorates the five-hryvnia note of independent Ukraine.

When Ukraine fell under Russian rule, the growing but impoverished Jewish community was assigned a political role rather than an economic one: as the people the tsars blamed to explain away challenges to their rule. It was in Kiev in 1913 that tsarist prosecutors brought the last blood libel case in European history, accusing Menachem Mendel Beilis, a supervisor in a brick factory, of the ritual murder of a 13-year-old boy. Beilis was acquitted after a sensational trial, though that didn’t stop someone from writing “killed by a kike” on the gravestone of the murdered boy. The factory where Beilis worked isn’t far from the infamous fields of Babi Yar, the biggest mass grave for Jewish victims of Nazi murder.

A defaced Jewish memorial at the Kurenivka cemetery in Kiev, in 2004. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich)

This grim history winds its way through pogroms and massacres after the Bolshevik Revolution and culminates in the Holocaust, in which an estimated 1.4 million Ukrainian Jews perished. The invading Nazis recruited Ukrainian units to do the face-to-face killing, especially of children, that German officers deemed too psychologically upsetting for their own men. After these executions were centralized in extermination camps, the Nazis enlisted Ukrainian collaborators as guards and enforcers.

Ukrainians had suffered their own holocaust during a horrific famine engineered by the Soviets under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. So when the Germans invaded in 1941, some Ukrainians seized the chance to recover the independence they’d briefly enjoyed in 1919. The Nazis rapidly made clear, however, that Ukrainians wouldn’t be more than serfs and slaves in the empire Germany was building. The Ukrainian independence leader Stepan Bandera was arrested and sent to a German concentration camp.

But as the fortunes of war turned against Germany, the Nazis decided Ukraine might make a useful ally after all. They released Bandera and equipped his paramilitary force. Under the red-and-black flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Bandera’s followers fought a doomed war against Soviet forces for years after 1945—and committed atrocities to drive Poles from territory they hoped to claim. Patriotic Ukrainians faced only bad choices in 1941. But from a menu of bad, they chose the worst.

***

This history is the material with which Russian propaganda has fashioned its accusations against those who want to build a truly independent Ukraine. The symbols of Ukrainian nationalism are indeed historically compromised. Most Ukrainians have rallied to new symbols, including the circle of gold stars that represents the European Union. But over the tents of the ultra-nationalists who line one side of the Maidan, the red-and-black flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Armyfly again.

On the other hand, Putin is no one to talk. If today’s Ukrainian nationalists deserve blame for the misdeeds of their predecessors, then Russian nationalists deserve blame for the misdeeds of theirs. As Putin hurls allegations of Nazism against contemporary Ukrainians who seek democracy and honest government, it’s worth recalling that he himself traffics in Nazi-like assertions, like the claim that Bolshevism was the work of Jews. The very thing Putin seeks to prevent—true democracy in Ukraine—is the thing most likely to slay the demons of the past.

One of the most exciting moments in my brief visit to Kiev was an afternoon at the offices of Hromadske. TV, an Internet broadcaster that has become the most influential news source in Ukraine through the bold and innovative strategy of reporting facts as best it can. A couple dozen young journalists work six and eight to a room. Moving around the small suite of rooms, I was transported back in time to Prague and Warsaw in 1989-90, when communism cracked and it was suddenly possible to live in truth.

Here again were the same funky haircuts and the same jeans and T-shirts: “Fuck corruption,” one said.

Here again were the same funky haircuts and the same jeans and T-shirts: “Fuck corruption,” said one, in English. Here again was the determination to fuse nationalism and democracy, to live both as citizens of a free nation and participants in a free Europe. Here again were the agonizing questions: ‘After so many lost years, will it be our generation that manages to live a normal life? Or will our hopes, like those of the generations before us, be dashed? Will we grow old feeling that life is elsewhere and that hope is something only for our children or grandchildren?’

Ukrainians face more hostile conditions than Central Europeans did in 1989-90. The country is menaced by invasion, with part of its territory already seized and possibly more to follow. Its new government is weak, its people divided. Ukrainians themselves will have to solve their political problems and shoulder most of the responsibility for defending their nation against aggression. When the time comes, it is Ukrainians too who will have to face the full truth about their past and atone where atonement is called for.

But there is one thing that Ukrainians cannot do alone—that requires the involvement of the rest of the world: rejecting the defamatory lies told by those who robbed, exploited, oppressed, and invaded them.

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/28/ukraines-phantom-neo-nazi-menace/feed/0Visiting Kiev’s wounded in Jerusalemhttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/27/visiting-kievs-wounded-in-jerusalem/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=visiting-kievs-wounded-in-jerusalem
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/27/visiting-kievs-wounded-in-jerusalem/#commentsThu, 27 Mar 2014 20:19:54 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2415by Jeremy Borovitz (JTA)- Artem Zaptotski, from Lutsk, in western Ukraine, sits in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, sharing his room with a French Hasid. Seeing that I speak Hebrew and wear a kippah, the Hasid asks if he should encourage Zaptotski to put on tefillin. No, I tell him. Zaptotski isn’t Jewish. In fact, he […]

(JTA)- Artem Zaptotski, from Lutsk, in western Ukraine, sits in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, sharing his room with a French Hasid. Seeing that I speak Hebrew and wear a kippah, the Hasid asks if he should encourage Zaptotski to put on tefillin. No, I tell him. Zaptotski isn’t Jewish. In fact, he had only one Jewish friend until 10 days ago.

As we are speaking, one of Zaptotski’s legs slips out of his “Yad Sarah”- provided wheelchair. He struggles for a few moments to shimmy it back into place, sighs, and asks me for help. And as I, a 26-year-old Torah student from New Jersey, grasp the lifeless limb of this 34-year-old Ukrainian lawyer, he looks me in the eye and makes a verbal declaration before God: “I will walk again.”

On Feb. 20, Zaptotski was shot by a sniper near Kiev’s Maidan, or Independence Square. Enraged by what he had seen take place on Feb. 18, when the government opened fire on the protesters, he left his wife and two small children at home and rode across the country by bus to support his countrymen on the square.

While standing near Maidan that day, one bullet pierced his lung, and another pierced his legs. His spine was also affected.

But he is resilient. When he arrived in Israel from Ukraine he couldn’t sit up, and his arms were weak. Today, he is sitting up by himself, and he swears to me that just the other day he felt a tingling in his toes.

When I first saw Marina Lysak’s post on Facebook a few weeks ago, quickly reposted by a number of her friends, advertising her efforts to send some of the Maidan’s wounded to Israel for treatment, I wrote a quick email offering my services.

I had met Lysak when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. A young Jewish Ukrainian who is well known throughout the city as a top Hebrew teacher, Lysak has been to Israel many times, and it was her early love affair with the country that pushed her to organize this rescue effort.

Truthfully, I didn’t see how she would pull it off. But within a few days Lysak and her team of four other Jewish Kievans, with help from a team of other Ukrainians, had found a plane, a pilot and $70,000, with the proper documents to boot.

Lysak had been out there on the square during the protests, volunteering at hospitals, standing with her fellow citizens. Her determination to send the wounded to Israel was a way to let her blue-and-white Jewish identity fly next to the yellow-and-blue flag of Ukraine.

Anya Zharova called me, in response to my email, a few days after the wounded arrived in Israel. Zharova left Ukraine 14 years ago, at the age of 20. While she has been back to visit, she very much considers herself an Israeli, and her young daughter is a sabra.

I asked her how I could help, offering my services as a Ukrainian-speaker. She began rattling off ideas about organizing volunteers to visit the injured and making sure the family members of the wounded were being looked after; just last week, she sent them to the Dead Sea for some much needed respite. By the way, she asked, did I have $800,000?

Zharova has amassed a team of over 100 volunteers in Israel, most of them originally from the former Soviet Union, many from Ukraine. They are mostly but not exclusively under 40, mostly Russian speaking, and most of them did not know each other until the call for volunteers went viral. They are a constant presence at the hospitals and can be found knocking on the doors of Russian Jewish oligarchs at their shore-side Netanya homes, in search of donations.

Zharova told me that when she first saw the pictures on the news of those injured in Kiev and read Marina’s initial post for help on Facebook, it was Pirkei Avot, not politics, that compelled her to get involved. “If I am only for myself, what am I?” she thought.

Kaplan Medical Center, a hospital in Rehovot, agreed to take on 10 of the injured Ukrainians, but the two most serious cases, including Artem, were eventually sent to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. No matter the fact that there is no guarantee of financial recompense. No matter the strain this puts on the hospital’s bottom line.

I stand in awe of these Israeli doctors, many of them from the former Soviet Union, who are so eager to help Ukrainians who were shot as they exercised their right to stand freely. Now, they will help them stand again.

One of the lines Zaptotski kept repeating to me when we met was “Thank God for Israel.” What was this Orthodox Christian Ukrainian trying to teach me?

Perhaps it was thank God there is a country that can sometimes allow its values to conquer its pragmatism and its heart to conquer its mind. Thank God there is a place where the people will care not just about you but will have the foresight to ask your loved ones what they need. Thank God there is a people to watch over him, and thank God that Israelis are instilling in Zaptotski a dream not so unlike the one Theodor Herzl talked about over a century ago: That from the confines of his wheelchair, in this land, he will learn again to walk on his own two feet.

While Kiev and its environs have been relatively peaceful since the chaos of Feb. 18 and Feb. 19, hundreds are still suffering from wounds incurred during clashes with riot police operating on behalf of the country’s then president, Victor Yanukovych.

But thanks to the effort of volunteers in both Kiev and Israel, Bolodimir and six other severely wounded patients were airlifted to Israel March 7, where they are scheduled to receive treatment at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot as well as at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Many of the wounded already have undergone multiple surgeries locally. But care in Ukrainian hospitals is deeply lacking, said Tzvi Arieli, a coordinator of the treatment effort who has lived in both Ukraine and Israel.

“When you go into a public hospital in Ukraine, you don’t know if you will leave dead,” Arieli told JTA.

The initiative stemmed from the desire of Ukrainian Jews to help their countrymen using the advanced medical capacities of Israeli hospitals, Arieli wrote in an open letter to supporters.

“We are a group of Jews from Ukraine,” Arieli wrote. “What binds us together is our Jewish identity and our deep desire to do something to alleviate the suffering of those who have been injured during recent events.”

“We love our fellow Ukrainians,” he continued, “and we are proud of the Jewish state, Israel, whose first-class medical treatment will give our countrymen the best chance at resuming a normal life.”

The project faced initial obstacles in terms of both hospital access within Israel and funding. Dr. Valeriya Babchik, a physician at Kaplan, helped to organize the project, along with Arieli and Marina Lysak, a Kiev resident.

Alexander Levin, an American Jewish businessman with extensive ties to Ukraine, donated $50,000 to the initiative, which covered the initial costs of transporting the first group. But Arieli and others estimate the cost of transportation and medical care for 20-30 severely wounded individuals to reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not higher.

For now, those involved in the project are feeling thrilled.

“Our plane has taken off!” wrote one Kiev volunteer, exuberantly, on her Facebook page. “All the sleepless nights are worth it.”

For project volunteers in Israel, however, the work is just beginning.

According to Anna Zharova, who is coordinating volunteer help in Israel, volunteers have helped arrange ambulances for the arriving wounded. A request for translation of medical documents from Russian or Ukrainian into Hebrew or English went viral, arranged through a Gmail account.

“Every injured person will have a volunteer to get everything he needs: food, a place to stay for his family that’s coming with him,” Zharova said. “My vision is that there won’t be politics here. There are different sides and opinions, but we’re careful to come from a place of assistance. It’s a matter of life and death. Over there, they’re volunteering 24 hours a day.”

Zharova and others interviewed expressed frustration that government sources have been largely unresponsive to the group’s efforts. Hennadii Nadolenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, pledged support but has not fulfilled initial promises, Zharova said.

“This was all through private hands. There’s no time to waste. People are dying from simple things because there are no medical supplies, no medicine, nothing,” she told JTA.

The Israeli government has been largely silent on the issue, despite the large population of Jews from Ukraine living in Israel.

“We want to reach the government. There’s no shortage of Ukrainians here with family or friends there, and it’s important to them. This isn’t coming from a political standpoint. It’s humanitarian, to help people,” Zharova said. “It’s important for us to connect to Hebrew speakers. We want Israelis to know about this initiative, anyone who can help, because that’s our way of doing tikkun olam.”

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/08/wounded-ukrainian-protesters-airlifted-to-israel-for-medical-treatment/feed/0Russia vs. Ukraine: A clash of brothers, not cultureshttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/06/russia-vs-ukraine-a-clash-of-brothers-not-cultures/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=russia-vs-ukraine-a-clash-of-brothers-not-cultures
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/06/russia-vs-ukraine-a-clash-of-brothers-not-cultures/#commentsThu, 06 Mar 2014 15:52:11 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2298by Akos Lada, Washington Post Commentators are invoking Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations“ to argue that a Cold-War-like confrontation between a Western and an Eastern civilization is in the making: A battle of two culturally-distant groups, sitting on the edges of a cultural chasm. However, what is striking about Ukraine and Russia are the cultural similaritiesrather than differences. This […]

Commentators are invoking Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations“ to argue that a Cold-War-like confrontation between a Western and an Eastern civilization is in the making: A battle of two culturally-distant groups, sitting on the edges of a cultural chasm. However, what is striking about Ukraine and Russia are the cultural similaritiesrather than differences. This is a clash of brothers rather than a clash of civilizations. My research shows that such fratricidal wars are more common than we may think.

Countries with shared identities often go to war with each other. This is most likely when two countries are culturally similar but differ in their political institutions. Elites in repressive regimes are threatened by a culturally-similar country where citizens are becoming empowered. The example of the two Koreas illustrates such a conflict vividly. North Korean citizens are most likely to push for change when they are inspired by a culturally-similar democracy such as South Korea. As a result, North Korean dictators work to prevent their citizens from learning about South Korean democracy. They even use force against South Korea to ensure that North Korean citizens see their Southern brothers as an enemy rather than a model.

The Russian invasion of Hungary in 1849 during the European liberal revolutions is another example. The czar’s greatest fear was that revolution would spill over from Hungary to Russian-ruled Poland, spreading “political illness’’ into his own empire. On the eve of the war, he wrote to his general in a private letter that intervention in Hungary was necessary because the Hungarian revolutionaries were “villains, scoundrels, and destroyers, whom we must destroy for the sake of our own tranquility.’’

To examine whether this reflects more general patterns, I analyzed data on all interstate hostility over the past two centuries (using the Militarized Interstate Dispute dataset).

Even after taking into account geographic closeness, I find that both hostile acts and wars are more frequent between two countries which share identities but have different political institutions. This is true regardless of whether identity is measured in terms of religion, civilization, racial proximity and also more fine-grain measures based on survey questions that ask about cultural patterns of behavior.

How do we know that two countries are culturally similar in a consequential way? Previous studies find that policy and institutions spread over identity dimensions that are highly visible, such as religion, ethnicity or race.

In his study on policy diffusion in Latin America, Kurt Weyland writes that the policy changes that are most likely to inspire copying are those which are immediately available, salient and striking. Shared identity between two countries along visible dimensions makes a democratic revolution in one of them immediately available as a model for the other.

Ukrainians and Russians share identity along many visible dimensions, such as religion and race. Furthermore, rather than creating a cleavage in the middle of Ukraine, the ethnic Russian minority forges key ties between Western Ukraine and Russia: Pippa Norris finds that ‘’the most striking observation from the comparison of political values held by Ukrainian and Russian language groups in [Ukraine] is the similarities rather than the contrasts.’’

Putin likely sees Ukraine as a threat based on its cultural proximity to Russia rather than its cultural distance. The recent political change in Kiev resulted in a dramatic shift from an authoritarian regime to one with liberal aspirations in a country that is culturally-similar to Russia. Large protests for democratic change were held not just in Western Ukraine, but throughout the East as well, where there is a significant Russian-speaking minority.

Why is this change a threat to Putin? Perhaps because a more democratic Ukrainian government may serve as an example to Russian citizens of how culturally-similar people can be alternatively governed. As history shows, a dictator with an army does not wait for this to happen.

]]>http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/06/russia-vs-ukraine-a-clash-of-brothers-not-cultures/feed/0To the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putinhttp://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/06/to-the-president-of-the-russian-federation-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=to-the-president-of-the-russian-federation-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin
http://www.ucsj.org/2014/03/06/to-the-president-of-the-russian-federation-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin/#commentsThu, 06 Mar 2014 15:42:36 +0000http://www.ucsj.org/?p=2295To the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Mr. President! We are Jewish citizens of Ukraine: businessmen, managers, religious and public figures, scientists and scholars, artists and musicians. We are addressing you on behalf of the multi-national people of Ukraine, Ukraine’s national minorities, and on behalf of the Jewish community. You have stated […]

]]>To the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

Mr. President!

We are Jewish citizens of Ukraine: businessmen, managers, religious and public figures, scientists and scholars, artists and musicians. We are addressing you on behalf of the multi-national people of Ukraine, Ukraine’s national minorities, and on behalf of the Jewish community.

You have stated that Russia wants to protect the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of the Crimea and all of Ukraine and that these rights have been flouted by the current Ukrainian government. Historically, Ukrainian Jews are also mostly Russian-speaking. Thus, our opinion on what is happening carries no less weight than the opinion of those who advise and inform you.

We do not believe that you are easy to fool. You consciously pick and choose lies and slander from the massive amount of information about Ukraine. And you know very well that Victor Yanukovich’s statement concerning the time after the latest treaty had been signed that “…Kyiv is full of armed people who have begun to trash buildings, places of worship, churches. Innocent people have begun to suffer. People have simply been robbed and killed in the street…” are lies, from the first word to the very last.

The Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine are not being humiliated or discriminated against, their civil rights have not been limited. Meanderings about “forced Ukrainization” and “bans on the Russian language” that have been so common in Russian media are on the heads of those who invented them. Your certainty of the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine also does not correspond to the actual facts. It seems you have confused Ukraine with Russia, where Jewish organizations have noticed growth in anti-Semitic tendencies last year.

Right now, after Ukraine has survived a difficult political crisis, many of us have wound up on different sides of the barricades. The Jews of Ukraine, as all ethnic groups, are not absolutely unified in their opinion towards what is happening in the country. But we live in a democratic country and can afford a difference of opinion.

They have tried to scare us (and are continuing their attempts) with “Bandera followers” and “Fascists” attempting to wrest away the helm of Ukrainian society, with imminent Jewish progroms. Yes, we are well aware that the political opposition and the forces of social protests who have secured changes for the better are made up of different groups. They include nationalistic groups, but even the most marginal do not dare show anti-Semitism or other xenophobic behavior. And we certainly know that our very few nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government – which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services.

We have a great mutual understanding with the new government, and a partnership is in the works. There are quite a few national minority representatives in the Cabinet of Ministers: the Minister of Internal Affairs is Armenian, the Vice Prime Minister is a Jew, two ministers are Russian. The newly-appointed governors of Ukraine’s region are also not exclusively Ukrainian.

Unfortunately, we must admit that in recent days stability in our country has been threatened. And this threat is coming from the Russian government, namely – from you personally. It is your policy of inciting separatism and crude pressure placed on Ukraine that threatens us and all Ukrainian people, including those who live in Crimea and the Ukrainian South-East. South-eastern Ukrainians will soon see that for themselves.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, we highly value your concern about the safety and rights of Ukrainian national minorities. But we do not wish to be “defended” by sundering Ukraine and annexing its territory. We decisively call for you not to intervene in internal Ukrainian affairs, to return the Russian armed forces to their normal fixed peacetime location, and to stop encouraging pro-Russian separatism.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, we are quite capable of protecting our rights in a constructive dialogue and in cooperation with the government and civil society of a sovereign, democratic, and united Ukraine. We strongly urge you not to destabilize the situation in our country and to stop your attempts of delegitimizing the new Ukrainian government.

Signed:

Josef Zisels Chairman of the Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (VAAD) Ukraine, Executive Vice President of the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine

Alexander Suslensky D.Sc., Vice President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, businessman

Andrei Adamovsky First Vice President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, member of the “Hillel” Jewish Student organization Observation Council (citizen of Russia)

Evgen Chervonenko Vice President of the European Jewish Congress, businessman